[asiacouncil] Date Correction - April 1 for Asia Council workshop topics & speakers confirmed

[Eric Kendrick]

Sorry about that, everyone.  The date we decided on is April 1, not May 1.  It is now corrected below and on the attached preliminary schedule.

Eric

From: Eric Kendrick
Sent: Friday, February 4, 2022 3:44 PM
To: asiacouncil at lighthouse.valdosta.edu
Cc: Eric Kendrick <ekendrick at gsu.edu>
Subject: Asia Council workshop topics & speakers confirmed
Importance: High

Colleagues,

Our goal was to finalize the topics and speakers within two weeks, but we beat the deadline by a week, thanks to SungShin, Tsu-Ming, and Baogang securing four outstanding speakers in addition to the ones already confirmed with Jonathan and Salli (below and attached).

The planning team (Flor, Tsu-Ming, Sungshin, and Baogang) and I will be ironing out the details next week (technology plan, start time, etc.).

With six speakers, we will need to start at either 9:00 or 9:30, with each session lasting an hour (approx. allocation of time: 5-minute introduction by a session chair, 40-minute talk, 15-minute Q&A.

As you can see, we were able to include major regions and countries of Asia AND a cross-section of disciplines comprising the social sciences, humanities, and STEM.  Given that this workshop will be virtual in addition to free, we should be able to reach out to a substantial new cohort of faculty across the state that have never participated with us before, in addition to contacts from past events.


  *   As most of our sessions in the past have been focused on the social sciences, and to a lesser degree the humanities, I'm particularly excited that we were able to find such a quality speaker from a STEM field.  Hasitha Mahabaduge has not only been involved working with solar panels in China, teaching physics to Tibetan monks in India, and mentoring students in his home country of Sri Lanka, he also has a strong background in SOTL (the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) and has been recognized with significant teaching honors, which will connect well with the pedagogical focus of the workshops.  Thanks for recruiting him, Tsu-Ming.


  *   I knew that when we were able to get North Georgia University back on board with the Asia Council that we would reap benefits from it, given their growing and vibrant East Asian Studies Program that SungShin directs.  She has used her contacts there to recruit two excellent speakers on Korea and Japan, both of whom also presented at our ASDP national conference two years ago.


  *   Yawei Liu is not only one of the foremost China experts around and a good colleague of Baogang who invited him, but he's also a former colleague to George, Salli and me at Georgia Perimeter College.  He and I even worked together at our former campus in Lawrenceville.  We are very privileged to have the Carter Center represented on our program.


  *   And of course, there's Jonathan and Salli, whose scholarship on Asia and work with the Asia Council for many years is all familiar to us all.  We will be proud to have both of you represent us to the rest of the state.  Thank you for serving as speakers this year, as you have in the past.

We are off to a great start.....more to come soon!

Eric Kendrick


2022 Asia Council "Teaching Across the Curriculum" Faculty Development Workshop - Friday, April 1


  *   Not all topics have formal titles yet.
  *   Once all descriptions and bios are submitted, I'll edit them to be approximately the same length.
  *   The Asia Council member who recruited the four additional speakers are highlighted (this is for council reference only; it will not be included in the program).

TITLE, or TOPIC if formal title not yet submitted

DESCRIPTION
SPEAKER BIO
Women's Issues in India

Salli Vargis
GSU Perimeter College

Youth, Freelance Work, and the Politics of State Support in Japan During the Covid-19 Pandemic: leveraging digital resources for research and teaching

Invited by Sungshin Kim
This presentation will showcase my recent research on how the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the working lives of Japanese freelance workers. The presentation is based on a paper published as part of a special issue of the Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus on how vulnerable populations have been impacted by the pandemic. Early in the pandemic, as businesses adapted to the crisis by instructing their employees to work remotely, many freelancers discovered that their existing contracts were cut short. The availability of work that they took for granted disappeared. New jobs, often with higher personal risk and less specialized skills, emerged in its place. The presentation, therefore, examines some of the political critiques freelance workers began articulating about their experiences in the labor market in a time of crisis. Moreover, the presentation will show how research published through peer-reviewed online journals provides an immediate and vital commentary on contemporary pressing social issues in East Asia. The open accessibility of online journals provides an important resource for instructors to incorporate new teaching materials into their undergraduate courses to augment and update existing course materials.

Robin O'Day

Associate Professor of Anthropology

University of North Georgia.



O'Day is a cultural anthropologist focusing on contemporary Japanese culture and society. He has conducted ethnographic research and published in the areas of Japanese social movements, youth, labor, disasters, oral narratives, and digital archiving.

Korean Cinema

Invited by Sungshin Kim

HaeLim Suh
Assistant Professor
Communication, Media & Journalism
North Georgia University

Connecting STEM Initiatives to Asia

Invited by Tsi-Ming Chiang
Faculty members across higher education are committed to the tripartite mission of teaching, research, and service. This mission does not need to be limited to one's own institution but can be extended internationally so that it not only benefits students from their own classrooms but across the globe.  Teaching physics to Tibetan Monks in India, faculty/student pair research experience in China, and mentoring undergraduate research students from Sri Lanka will be discussed as three specific examples of connecting STEM initiatives to Asia. This session will provide insights into the process of developing these initiatives and the impact of combining high impact practices such as global learning and undergraduate research in students learning. The challenges, possible remedies, and student perspectives on the educational benefits gained will also be discussed.

Hasitha Mahabaduge
Associate Professor of Physics
Director, Vertically Integrated Projects Program
Georgia College & State University.

Over the years Mahabaduge has held several fellowships including University System of Georgia Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (USG-SoTL) Fellowship and Governor's Teaching Fellowship. Dr. Mahabaduge received the Felton Jenkins, Jr. Hall of Fame Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2020 by the University System of Georgia and was named a Fellow of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the same year. Dr. Mahabaduge's research interests include fabrication and characterization of solar cells and semiconductor physics. Prior to joining Georgia College & State University, Dr. Mahabaduge worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Renewable Laboratory (NREL) in Golden Colorado. He was instrumental in setting the world record for the highest efficient flexible Cadmium Telluride solar cell and won NREL Director's Award for Outstanding Research in 2015. He also worked as a visiting scientist at the Institute of Electrical Engineering - Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing China in 2019. Dr. Mahabaduge earned his doctorate in physics from the University of Toledo, Ohio, in 2013. He received his bachelor's degree in computational physics from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 2007.

Stories involving China's claims to the South China Sea and their economic and political significance

Jonathan Leightner
Professor, James M. Hull College of Business
Augusta University

Leightner earned his Ph.D. in economic development from the University of North Carolina in 1989.  He taught at the Johns Hopkins University -- Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China for 2008-2010, for Seikei University in Tokyo, Japan in 2003, and for Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand for the summers of 2004-2019 and 2021.  When not teaching in Asia, he teaches at Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia, USA.  He has written 4 books, two of which are on China, and published over 50 peer reviewed articles. He recommends his book, Ethics, Efficiency, and Macroeconomics in China from Mao to Xi.

U.S. - China Relations

Invited by Baogang Guo

Yawei Liu
Senior Advisor, China Focus

Yawei Liu manages the China Focus and has been a member of numerous Carter Center missions to monitor Chinese village, township, and county people's congress deputy elections since 1997. Dr. Liu has written extensively on China's political developments and grassroots democracy, including three edited book series: "Rural Election and Governance in Contemporary China" (Northwestern University Press, Xi'an, 2002 and 2004), "The Political Readers" (China Central Translation Bureau Press, Beijing, 2006), and "Elections & Governance" (Northwestern University Press, Xian, 2009). He is the founder and editor of the China elections and governance website www.chinaelections.org<http://www.chinaelections.org/>. Dr. Liu is also co-author of the popular Chinese book "Obama: The Man Who Will Change America" (October 2008).
Dr. Liu is adjunct professor of political science at Emory University and associate director of the China Research Center in Atlanta.


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